Since the 1970s, archaeologists have increasingly depended on archaeometric rather than strictly ... more Since the 1970s, archaeologists have increasingly depended on archaeometric rather than strictly stylistic data to explore questions of ceramic provenance and technol- ogy, and, by extension, trade, exchange, social networks and even identity. It is accepted as obvious by some archaeometrists and statisti- cians that the results of the analyses of compo- sitional data may be dependent on the format of the data used, on the data exploration method employed and, in the case of multivari- ate analyses, even on the number of elements considered. However, this is rarely articulated clearly in publications, making it less obvious to archaeologists. In this short paper, we re- examine compositional data from a collection of bricks, tiles and ceramics from Hill Hall, near Epping in Essex, England, as a case study to show how the method of data exploration used and the number of elements considered in multivariate analyses of compositional data can affect the sorting of ceramic samples into ...
The present study re-examines geochemical data produced by instrumental neutron activa- tion anal... more The present study re-examines geochemical data produced by instrumental neutron activa- tion analysis (INAA) of sixty-two fired clay sed- iment samples from the western Nile delta in Egypt. The goal is to assess the strengths and weaknesses of principal component analysis (PCA) and bivariate data splitting (BDS), two widely used data analysis methods, in success- fully sorting differing sediment chemistries. Both PCA and BDS are performed using vari- ous data formats [i.e. original, calcium (Ca)- corrected, scandium (Sc)-normalized, or loga- rithmically (log10) transformed]. Both PCA and BDS are shown to sort differing chemistries well. While PCA has the advantage of speed, BDS has the advantage of providing specific chemical clarity and the opportunity to assess the degree of sand dilution more precisely. In PCA, the data format is semi-immaterial, while in BDS, different formats of the data may hin- der, rather than enhance, data interpretation, depending on the questions being as...
Dr. Kostalena Michelaki founded the laboratory for Interdisciplinary Research of Archaeological C... more Dr. Kostalena Michelaki founded the laboratory for Interdisciplinary Research of Archaeological Ceramics (LIRAC) in 2006, thanks to funding by the Canadian Foundation for Innovation. She established this facility to examine the relationships between technology, society and the environment, through the archaeometric analysis of technological choices made by people in the production and use of ceramics. Scholars working in LIRAC, and in associated McMaster research centers such as the Brockhouse Institute for Materials Research and the McMaster Institute for Applied Radiation Sciences, have analyzed materials from North and South America, the Near East, and the Mediterranean. In this talk we explore three research projects—the Neolithic and Bronze Ages in Calabria, Italy, Late Woodland Ontario, and Formative Period in the Lake Titicaca Basin, Bolivia—to highlight the successes of LIRAC, and reflect on some of the challenges associated with analytical approaches in what might be called a social geoarchaeology. What unites these regionally diverse case studies is their application of geochemical and mineralogical methods to both explore questions of provenance but also underlying social practices. Our paper demonstrates the shared view that embedded within ceramic objects is a record of human decisions that constituted a range of social practices.
Dr. Kostalena Michelaki founded the laboratory for Interdisciplinary Research of Archaeological C... more Dr. Kostalena Michelaki founded the laboratory for Interdisciplinary Research of Archaeological Ceramics (LIRAC) in 2006, thanks to funding by the Canadian Foundation for Innovation. She established this facility to examine the relationships between technology, society and the environment, through the archaeometric analysis of technological choices made by people in the production and use of ceramics. Scholars working in LIRAC, and in associated McMaster research centers such as the Brockhouse Institute for Materials Research and the McMaster Institute for Applied Radiation Sciences, have analyzed materials from North and South America, the Near East, and the Mediterranean. In this talk we explore three research projects—the Neolithic and Bronze Ages in Calabria, Italy, Late Woodland Ontario, and Formative Period in the Lake Titicaca Basin, Bolivia—to highlight the successes of LIRAC, and reflect on some of the challenges associated with analytical approaches in what might be called a social geoarchaeology. What unites these regionally diverse case studies is their application of geochemical and mineralogical methods to both explore questions of provenance but also underlying social practices. Our paper demonstrates the shared view that embedded within ceramic objects is a record of human decisions that constituted a range of social practices.
Archaeologists investigating Middle Bronze to Early Iron Age periods (1600–900 b.c.) in southern ... more Archaeologists investigating Middle Bronze to Early Iron Age periods (1600–900 b.c.) in southern Italy often explore linkages between emerging inequality and foreign trade connections, establishing a coupled trope of “change emerges from external forces” and “waiting for civilization to arrive”. Based on excavations at the Recent/Final Bronze and Early Iron Ages (RFBA/IA, 1200–900 b.c.) site of Sant’Aniceto in Calabria, we offer an alternative narrative in which hierarchy and institutionalized inequality held little sway in this community. By employing a building biography approach, we examine the variety of ways people sustain their communities through the creation and value of difference (e.g., age, knowledge, or skill) that characterize daily life, even when political hierarchy is absent. Our research at Sant’Aniceto centers on understanding the locally-grounded experiences and lives of people by approaching social difference through the lens of the materialities of everyday life.
Rehydroxylation (RHX) dating was recently suggested as a simple, cheap, and accurate method for d... more Rehydroxylation (RHX) dating was recently suggested as a simple, cheap, and accurate method for dating ceramics. It depends on the constant rate of rehydroxylation (the slow reintroduction of OH) of clays after they are fired and dehydroxylated (purged of OH) during the production of pots, bricks, or other ceramics. The original firing of the ceramic artifact should set the dating clock to zero by driving all hydroxyls out of the clay chemical structure. To examine whether this assumption holds, especially for pot firings of short duration and low intensity, as those in small-scale traditional settings, we performed thermogravimetric analysis of clay samples of known mineralogy at temperatures and for durations reported from traditional sub-Saharan, American, and South Asian pottery firings. If a sample was not completely dehydroxylated during its production, then current RHX methods would systematically overestimate its age. Results demonstrate that in the majority of samples, complete dehydroxylation (DHX) did not occur within, or even beyond, the conditions common in traditional firings. Consequently, between .01 and 1.5% of a sample’s mass in residual OH may remain after firings analogous to those observed in the ethnographic record. Lack of complete DHX at the scales we have observed can result in the over-estimation of ceramic ages by decades to tens of thousands of years, depending largely on the age of the sample, and the amount of residual OH present.
To understand the nature of trade/exchange of 'Basque' copper kettles and their fragments among I... more To understand the nature of trade/exchange of 'Basque' copper kettles and their fragments among Indigenous communities from Québec to Ontario, Canada, we examined 948 copper samples from 75 archaeological sites. We found that 936 samples were sortable into 11 coarse chemical groups: seven biased towards Ontario, three favouring Québec and only one balanced between the two provinces. This pattern may represent kettles and pieces 'mostly traded' or 'mostly kept' by Indigenous groups within Québec. Chemical group distribution within individual provinces is complex. A tentative chronology of copper chemical groups provides additional insight into the complex trading/exchange patterns among the Indigenous groups of southern Ontario.
Basque kettles and distinctive fragments from them have been found in archeological sites dating ... more Basque kettles and distinctive fragments from them have been found in archeological sites dating from the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th centuries C.E. all the way from the Canadian Maritimes to the lower Great Lakes. Both kettles and their fragments, as well as tools and ornaments made from them, were extensively traded among the Aboriginal communities, following trade routes established long before the arrival of Europeans. Little is known, however, about how these European copper objects were actually exchanged and distributed among the different Aboriginal communities. In this paper we argue that the establishment of metal chemical groups using instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) data can allow us to define groups of artifacts that had been produced using similar raw materials and manufacturing techniques and, thus, provide a refined way to trace similar objects through space and time. The spatial and temporal patterning of group chemistries could then illuminate the nature of the exchange and trade of European copper items, by allowing archeologists to ex- amine which communities were linked through which metal chemistries. In the present study we determine whether or not the same metal chemistries are shared among 59 Basque copper kettle samples found in three burial sites in Nova Scotia and 204 European copper artifacts found at the contemporaneous Ball site, a late 16th century Wendat village. We then explore the implications of the strong chemical connections among these materials for trade among Europeans and the various coastal Aboriginal communities, as well as that be- tween the Wendat of the Ball site and their allies to the east.
Since the 1970s, archaeologists have increasingly depended on archaeometric rather than strictly ... more Since the 1970s, archaeologists have increasingly depended on archaeometric rather than strictly stylistic data to explore questions of ceramic provenance and technol- ogy, and, by extension, trade, exchange, social networks and even identity. It is accepted as obvious by some archaeometrists and statisti- cians that the results of the analyses of compo- sitional data may be dependent on the format of the data used, on the data exploration method employed and, in the case of multivari- ate analyses, even on the number of elements considered. However, this is rarely articulated clearly in publications, making it less obvious to archaeologists. In this short paper, we re- examine compositional data from a collection of bricks, tiles and ceramics from Hill Hall, near Epping in Essex, England, as a case study to show how the method of data exploration used and the number of elements considered in multivariate analyses of compositional data can affect the sorting of ceramic samples into ...
The present study re-examines geochemical data produced by instrumental neutron activa- tion anal... more The present study re-examines geochemical data produced by instrumental neutron activa- tion analysis (INAA) of sixty-two fired clay sed- iment samples from the western Nile delta in Egypt. The goal is to assess the strengths and weaknesses of principal component analysis (PCA) and bivariate data splitting (BDS), two widely used data analysis methods, in success- fully sorting differing sediment chemistries. Both PCA and BDS are performed using vari- ous data formats [i.e. original, calcium (Ca)- corrected, scandium (Sc)-normalized, or loga- rithmically (log10) transformed]. Both PCA and BDS are shown to sort differing chemistries well. While PCA has the advantage of speed, BDS has the advantage of providing specific chemical clarity and the opportunity to assess the degree of sand dilution more precisely. In PCA, the data format is semi-immaterial, while in BDS, different formats of the data may hin- der, rather than enhance, data interpretation, depending on the questions being as...
Dr. Kostalena Michelaki founded the laboratory for Interdisciplinary Research of Archaeological C... more Dr. Kostalena Michelaki founded the laboratory for Interdisciplinary Research of Archaeological Ceramics (LIRAC) in 2006, thanks to funding by the Canadian Foundation for Innovation. She established this facility to examine the relationships between technology, society and the environment, through the archaeometric analysis of technological choices made by people in the production and use of ceramics. Scholars working in LIRAC, and in associated McMaster research centers such as the Brockhouse Institute for Materials Research and the McMaster Institute for Applied Radiation Sciences, have analyzed materials from North and South America, the Near East, and the Mediterranean. In this talk we explore three research projects—the Neolithic and Bronze Ages in Calabria, Italy, Late Woodland Ontario, and Formative Period in the Lake Titicaca Basin, Bolivia—to highlight the successes of LIRAC, and reflect on some of the challenges associated with analytical approaches in what might be called a social geoarchaeology. What unites these regionally diverse case studies is their application of geochemical and mineralogical methods to both explore questions of provenance but also underlying social practices. Our paper demonstrates the shared view that embedded within ceramic objects is a record of human decisions that constituted a range of social practices.
Dr. Kostalena Michelaki founded the laboratory for Interdisciplinary Research of Archaeological C... more Dr. Kostalena Michelaki founded the laboratory for Interdisciplinary Research of Archaeological Ceramics (LIRAC) in 2006, thanks to funding by the Canadian Foundation for Innovation. She established this facility to examine the relationships between technology, society and the environment, through the archaeometric analysis of technological choices made by people in the production and use of ceramics. Scholars working in LIRAC, and in associated McMaster research centers such as the Brockhouse Institute for Materials Research and the McMaster Institute for Applied Radiation Sciences, have analyzed materials from North and South America, the Near East, and the Mediterranean. In this talk we explore three research projects—the Neolithic and Bronze Ages in Calabria, Italy, Late Woodland Ontario, and Formative Period in the Lake Titicaca Basin, Bolivia—to highlight the successes of LIRAC, and reflect on some of the challenges associated with analytical approaches in what might be called a social geoarchaeology. What unites these regionally diverse case studies is their application of geochemical and mineralogical methods to both explore questions of provenance but also underlying social practices. Our paper demonstrates the shared view that embedded within ceramic objects is a record of human decisions that constituted a range of social practices.
Archaeologists investigating Middle Bronze to Early Iron Age periods (1600–900 b.c.) in southern ... more Archaeologists investigating Middle Bronze to Early Iron Age periods (1600–900 b.c.) in southern Italy often explore linkages between emerging inequality and foreign trade connections, establishing a coupled trope of “change emerges from external forces” and “waiting for civilization to arrive”. Based on excavations at the Recent/Final Bronze and Early Iron Ages (RFBA/IA, 1200–900 b.c.) site of Sant’Aniceto in Calabria, we offer an alternative narrative in which hierarchy and institutionalized inequality held little sway in this community. By employing a building biography approach, we examine the variety of ways people sustain their communities through the creation and value of difference (e.g., age, knowledge, or skill) that characterize daily life, even when political hierarchy is absent. Our research at Sant’Aniceto centers on understanding the locally-grounded experiences and lives of people by approaching social difference through the lens of the materialities of everyday life.
Rehydroxylation (RHX) dating was recently suggested as a simple, cheap, and accurate method for d... more Rehydroxylation (RHX) dating was recently suggested as a simple, cheap, and accurate method for dating ceramics. It depends on the constant rate of rehydroxylation (the slow reintroduction of OH) of clays after they are fired and dehydroxylated (purged of OH) during the production of pots, bricks, or other ceramics. The original firing of the ceramic artifact should set the dating clock to zero by driving all hydroxyls out of the clay chemical structure. To examine whether this assumption holds, especially for pot firings of short duration and low intensity, as those in small-scale traditional settings, we performed thermogravimetric analysis of clay samples of known mineralogy at temperatures and for durations reported from traditional sub-Saharan, American, and South Asian pottery firings. If a sample was not completely dehydroxylated during its production, then current RHX methods would systematically overestimate its age. Results demonstrate that in the majority of samples, complete dehydroxylation (DHX) did not occur within, or even beyond, the conditions common in traditional firings. Consequently, between .01 and 1.5% of a sample’s mass in residual OH may remain after firings analogous to those observed in the ethnographic record. Lack of complete DHX at the scales we have observed can result in the over-estimation of ceramic ages by decades to tens of thousands of years, depending largely on the age of the sample, and the amount of residual OH present.
To understand the nature of trade/exchange of 'Basque' copper kettles and their fragments among I... more To understand the nature of trade/exchange of 'Basque' copper kettles and their fragments among Indigenous communities from Québec to Ontario, Canada, we examined 948 copper samples from 75 archaeological sites. We found that 936 samples were sortable into 11 coarse chemical groups: seven biased towards Ontario, three favouring Québec and only one balanced between the two provinces. This pattern may represent kettles and pieces 'mostly traded' or 'mostly kept' by Indigenous groups within Québec. Chemical group distribution within individual provinces is complex. A tentative chronology of copper chemical groups provides additional insight into the complex trading/exchange patterns among the Indigenous groups of southern Ontario.
Basque kettles and distinctive fragments from them have been found in archeological sites dating ... more Basque kettles and distinctive fragments from them have been found in archeological sites dating from the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th centuries C.E. all the way from the Canadian Maritimes to the lower Great Lakes. Both kettles and their fragments, as well as tools and ornaments made from them, were extensively traded among the Aboriginal communities, following trade routes established long before the arrival of Europeans. Little is known, however, about how these European copper objects were actually exchanged and distributed among the different Aboriginal communities. In this paper we argue that the establishment of metal chemical groups using instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) data can allow us to define groups of artifacts that had been produced using similar raw materials and manufacturing techniques and, thus, provide a refined way to trace similar objects through space and time. The spatial and temporal patterning of group chemistries could then illuminate the nature of the exchange and trade of European copper items, by allowing archeologists to ex- amine which communities were linked through which metal chemistries. In the present study we determine whether or not the same metal chemistries are shared among 59 Basque copper kettle samples found in three burial sites in Nova Scotia and 204 European copper artifacts found at the contemporaneous Ball site, a late 16th century Wendat village. We then explore the implications of the strong chemical connections among these materials for trade among Europeans and the various coastal Aboriginal communities, as well as that be- tween the Wendat of the Ball site and their allies to the east.
We are pleased to announce the closing conference of the NPAP project. We started in 2007 with re... more We are pleased to announce the closing conference of the NPAP project. We started in 2007 with research that mainly concerns the ancient pottery of excavation in Italy (Satricum) and excavations in Greece (Halos, Zakynthos). The main aim was the development of new methodologies in archaeological pottery studies for increasing the quality and quantity of the information that can be derived from a basic ceramic dataset. Perspectives from a range of traditions in pottery studies were thus combined and integrated, such as technological, stylistic and geological approaches. Data from other regions mainly in Greece and Italy were also used and compared to increase the proportion of diagnostic material. In this conference the final results of the NPAP material studies will be presented and specific research questions regarding the cross-regional production, distribution and use (consumption) of pottery will be addressed. The NPAP final conference aims at facilitating dialogue and interaction between young and established researchers. Merging a wide spectrum of pottery analyses and adopting cross-regional and cross-temporal approaches, this conference will represent a innovative multidisciplinary event for all those working with ancient ceramics and interested in a holistic approach to the subject.
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In this conference the final results of the NPAP material studies will be presented and specific research questions regarding the cross-regional production, distribution and use (consumption) of pottery will be addressed. The NPAP final conference aims at facilitating dialogue and interaction between young and established researchers. Merging a wide spectrum of pottery analyses and adopting cross-regional and cross-temporal approaches, this conference will represent a innovative multidisciplinary event for all those working with ancient ceramics and interested in a holistic approach to the subject.